


Tell Me When You're Older

by bacchanalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Age Swap, Alcohol, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, HUNK GETS THE SMART TALK HE DESERVES, I love Hunk, M/M, Older!Keith, Pining, Temporary Unrequited Love, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Voyeurism, Younger!Shiro, how can you pass that up, shiro is captain of the football team, that wasn't a real tag so i made it one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2018-11-19 15:32:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchanalia/pseuds/bacchanalia
Summary: In which Shiro's best friend Matt has an adoptive older brother Keith who's mysterious and everything Shiro wants to look at for the rest of his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commission from twitter user @capt_shiro and I was so excited to start this! Age swap au with pining Shiro isn't anything I'd even thought of before but it's going to be such a cute/steamy ride, so thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy! For more information about my writing along with updates, follow me on Twitter @spookysheith !

Shiro should have known by the telltale signs that Keith is preoccupied. Those signs including the unmistakable pants of breaths, audible over his hesitant footsteps that take him closer and closer to Keith’s door. It’s morbid curiosity, he thinks as his heart begins to pound in his ears and his blood runs a marathon through his veins, that despite knowing exactly what he’ll find, Shiro still looks through the slit in Keith’s door. 

Clothes, obviously forgotten in a rush, lay haphazardly across the carpet and Shiro doesn’t waste any time discerning which belong to Keith and which belong to the person currently sharing Keith’s bed. A pang of jealousy jolts through him as his eyes lock with the tangling forms before him and there’s no denying it (as if there ever was), Keith’s having sex with his boyfriend. 

For a split second, Shiro’s envy manifests itself in righteous irritation. Today had been a half day at school for those in the eighth grade, so in Keith’s defense him and Matt  _ were  _ home early, but… Well, it was the principle of the matter. Keith was always so insistent on being a role model, so why was he caught up in something out of a porno when anyone could walk in? 

Suddenly, the thought of this being a regular occurrence hits Shiro in the center of his chest like a ton of bricks, threatening to knock him backwards and out of the scene’s line of sight. It feels like a unique form of self-torture, the fact that he is unable to look away. But Shiro can’t because part of him doesn’t want to. Part of him can’t get enough of seeing Keith’s face twist up in euphoria, of watching the flush rise to his cheeks or the heightened pace of his breathing. 

Shiro doesn’t realize how caught up he is in what he’s seeing until his imagination is supplying the image of his own face in place of Keith’s boyfriend, and as if a fragile dam is bursting he’s thinking of every place on Keith he’d touch and kiss and suck in a rush of overwhelming emotion that’s burrowing itself into the pit of his belly in a foreign sensation. He’s thirteen years old and no stranger to how sex is  _ supposed  _ to work, but seeing it is something different and wishing he were the one driving in and out of Keith and causing those sounds might as well have been from another dimension. 

_ I’m too young for this… _ He thinks in the back of his mind as a semblance of reality settles into him while a chorus of skin against skin plays in the background. What he’s watching is not for him, it’s for adults (Keith, who’s nineteen) who exist on a separate plane, far out of his reach and understanding. The realization of that has Shiro’s chest aching with desire, it’s empty and painful and full of a yearning that makes him want nothing more than to fill it. 

Shiro tells himself that he’ll look away, turn to walk back down the hallway and count to two thousand before he tries coming to say ‘hi’ to Keith again. It’s silly and stupid but one of the highlights of Shiro’s day is having Keith welcome him home as if he belongs here, with him (and with how often he comes over to Matt’s, it’s almost starting to feel that way). But he doesn’t because it feels as if every gravitational force in the universe is tying him to Keith as Shiro watches his crush dig his nails into another man’s back and arch his own in ecstasy. Absently, he thinks Keith seems like he’s close to climaxing, and the thought registers to Shiro’s body in an obvious hardening in his pants. 

Shiro clutches himself through his jeans and gasps just as Keith tosses his beautiful head back and orgasms all over his stomach and chest. 

Later, when they’re eating dinner, Keith emerges with mussed hair and a satisfied swagger in his step. Shiro takes note of the fact that no one else had left Keith’s room, and so he figures that whoever the culprit was must have left out of his bedroom window. It was so like Keith, to separate his personal life from the eyes of his siblings. Shiro feels like it’s less due to the fact that Keith is embarrassed by whoever he’s with and more that his protective nature won’t allow certain types around Matt and Pidge. 

In any case, Shiro can’t look him in the eye. Behind his eyelids, relentless images pass through his mind replaying everything he’d seen a couple hours ago and causing him to shift in his seat. Against his will, Shiro feels his heart start to race once more, and he chances a glance in Keith’s direction. 

“Hey, what’s for dinner?” 

“Sloppy joes.” Pidge answers. Shiro forces himself to look back at his plate. 

“Sweet, I’m  _ starving _ .” The insinuation might be in his imagination, but Shiro can’t help putting the pieces together on Keith’s appetite. And it’s stupid and annoying but he probably needs at least a week before he can stop thinking about this every second of his life. 

Eating in silence works for Shiro. In fact, it’s relieving. He doesn’t want to have it look obvious that he’s ignoring eye contact with Keith (something he literally never does), not because he thinks Keith will notice by any means, but Pidge is creepy good with discerning things like that and he can’t very well say  _ ‘I saw Keith having sex and now I can’t stop thinking about it when my voice hasn’t even dropped yet _ ’. Keith breaks the quiet though.

“Lawn needs to be mowed tomorrow, by the way.” He doesn’t attach a name to it, but his violet (perfect) eyes flick up to Matt as he speaks. Matt, being the master of chore avoidance, dutifully stares at his sloppy joes and preoccupies his mouth with chewing. Shiro doesn’t even know why Keith still asks Matt, considering: 

“I’ll do it.” He volunteers right away, like always. Keith looks over at him and quirks his lips up into a smile that does cataclysmic damage to Shiro’s brain waves and he knows he ends up staring despite his vow of ignoring. 

“You’re spoiling him, you know.”  _ I’d rather spoil you. _ “Someday Matt’s gonna have to do shit for himself.” Shiro wanted to say that he wasn’t mowing the lawn for Matt (Keith tended to clean his bike in the garage with the door up, and Shiro always had a nice view of him working up a sweat while he did it), but that would be weird so he doesn’t. Instead, he shrugs and avoids Pidge’s knowing stare. 

“I just don’t mind. I like helping out.” Keith keeps his warm smile trained on Shiro for another few seconds before taking a bite of his food and turning to Matt, speaking with his mouth full as he did so. 

“When’re you gonna be more like Shiro, huh?”

“Just because Shiro plays into you not wanting to do the chores either--”

“The helpful little brother I always deserved.” Maybe Shiro isn’t so on board with this anymore. He was going more for ‘seductive handy man’ over ‘little brother’.  _ Age difference _ , Shiro reminds himself reluctantly.

“You’re just lazy.” Pidge mentions without even a glance. 

“For your information,  _ Katie _ , I worked out today.” Shiro feels his heart drop. 

“The guy you snuck out your window doesn’t count.” 

They both blanch at that one.

* * *

 

“What’s that look for, Stringbean?” Keith says to Shiro who rubs a palm over his slender bicep self-consciously. Keith is always teasing him for his gangly appearance and Shiro is always blushing in response. It isn’t abnormal to be skinny. That’s what his mom assures him at least.  _ You’re a growing boy! _ She tells him when he laments his lack of strength.  _ You have plenty of time to develop those little muscles!  _ But it doesn’t stop him from wishing ‘plenty of time’ would hurry up. In the least, Shiro can’t be entirely upset with the nickname considering it’s coming from Keith endearingly.

“Uh-- it’s...nothing…” It’s something.

Keith smirked. “Don’t like my shirt?” Said shirt in question was a grey crop top that left the majority of Keith’s incredibly toned midriff bare, with pink cursive font that said ‘Daddy’s Boy’ on the front. Shiro wants to keep staring at Keith, but he’s too busy pondering how he can fit himself into a Daddy Kink when he’s six years Keith’s junior. Is that a thing? He isn’t even taller than him… 

“I just didn’t know you thought about Mr. Holt that way.” Sometimes, Shiro tries to tease back. Keith laughs, so he considers that a win. 

“Ew, no way! See, look…” Keith comes closer to him, slings an arm around his shoulders. “My Dad’s dead, right?” 

“...Right.” Shiro is hardly following anything, he’s too busy trying not to let his imagination run wild from the simple contact. 

“So that mean’s I’m  _ nobody’s  _ boy. It’s a statement for independence.” Keith speaks it conspiratorily in Shiro’s ear that makes his entire body run hot. _ Focus, focus, focus _ . Luckily for him, Shiro didn’t have to chant to himself for long as Pidge appears in the doorway much akin to a knight in shining armor. Even though she’s four years younger than Shiro and Matt, she always seems to be on par or above them in whatever’s going on.

“That shirt is literally the exact opposite of independence, and you’re a pervert.” She speaks it matter-of-factly with her small hands resting on her hips and Shiro feels instant relief that he has something else to focus on as opposed to honing in on Keith’s breath and how close it is to his ear. 

“Don’t be a hater just ‘cause you don’t  _ get it _ , Pidge.” Keith starts, pulling Shiro in closer to his side and turning towards him. “You’re with me, right?” 

_ I want to be with you. Does that count?  _

“Y-yeah--” Shiro clears his throat. “Sure.” Pidge dramatically rolls her eyes before shooting Shiro a look that Keith doesn’t notice because he’s ruffling up Shiro’s hair then moving away from him. 

“That’s my boy.” Shiro is positive then and there that all the blood in his body is making a break for it to his cheeks. Keith playfully punches Pidge’s arm as he walks past her. “Start taking sibling notes. I need loyalty around here.” 

It really wasn’t fair that Keith could do the smallest things and affect Shiro for hours or more after the fact. _ That’s my boy. _ Yeah, that would be ample daydreaming material for the next few forevers of his life. 

“You’re  _ painfully  _ obvious.” Pidge says with a smirk and a raise of her brow the very second Keith’s completely out of earshot; and yeah he knows he isn’t exactly  _ subtle  _ with his crushing but it’d hardly for lack of trying. The good news for him was that Keith either doesn’t pick up on it in the slightest or is just doing him a solid by not saying anything. Shiro isn’t sure which he preferred. 

“Doesn’t seem like it to him.” Shiro isn’t embarrassed by his crush, so he doesn’t mind it so much when Pidge points it out, even if she’s trying to tease him. Most people would be, but Shiro’s never really understood that. If you liked someone, wasn’t it because you thought they were something worth liking? Shiro thinks Keith is as radiant as the sun, so it should be obvious that he’s caught up in his light. 

“I don’t get what you see in the guy, I mean, I love my brother, but he’s not as cool as you think.”  _ Says you. _ Shiro wants to say but doesn’t. Even though, really, Keith was that cool. He had his own motorcycle as of a few months ago.  _ That’s the definition of cool _ , Shiro follows up with in his head. 

“I think he has his moments.” 

“Like when he spit a noodle out of his nose that one time you made him laugh too hard?” 

Actually, Shiro had been too caught up in the prideful glow that came with making Keith laugh to really notice that, but Pidge apparently refused to let him live it down. In fact, she calls him Noodle Nose periodically and everyone laughs until Keith gathers them into a headlock that won’t relent until they say ‘uncle’, or ‘Keith’s so badass he makes noodles afraid of him’. 

Shiro always holds on until he’s the last one standing, grappling with Keith and trying not to feel guilty like he’s abusing their platonic bond; but the truth is he thinks about Keith’s hands all over him and vise versa enough that the mental war doesn’t last long.

Shiro knows he’s in deep with this and does nothing but fall farther. 

“Yeah, like that.” Pidge snorts and Shiro shamelessly looks forward to the next time Keith comes home. But this is what he expects from a crush that’s gone on for a little over two years now, ever since he first became friends with Matt Holt in seventh grade science class and came back to his house just to get an eyeful of his mysterious, adopted older brother Keith Kogane.

* * *

 

Shiro had known since he was little-- well, littler than he was, that he didn’t like girls the way people made him think he should. When he was five and stood up for a girl who was being picked on, people said ‘Is that your girlfriend, Shiro?’. When he turned ten they said ‘What a little lady’s man you’re turning out to be!’. It all made him frown and think about things a five and ten year old shouldn’t have to spend their days thinking about. If he was different than other boys, that didn’t really bother him, he didn’t mind standing up for people even if it caused comments he didn’t want to hear. 

Up until middle school, he hadn’t thought anything further than ‘I don’t like girls’. But that changed one day after school in seventh grade when Shiro dropped his pen the moment Keith walked through the door. He’d looked so cool, wearing a red leather jacket and sunglasses up on his head that pushed his bangs away from his face. Shiro felt his heart thump in his chest. 

“Working hard, little man?” Keith said to Matt as he walked up and ruffled up his sandy blond mop of hair. “Who’s your friend?” 

Matt fixed his glasses that had been jostled down the bridge of his nose and smoothed his hair as he spoke. “This is Shiro. We’re in science together.” 

“Hey Shiro, I’m Keith.” He spoke so easily. Even smiled at Shiro. “Keep him in line, huh?” 

“H-hi…” Was the only response he could manage in the moment. 

Matt spoke up as soon as Keith’s bedroom door shut. “Don’t be intimidated by him. He just seems scary.” Shiro didn’t think he seemed scary. 

“How old is he?” 

“I dunno. Old, probably.” Matt said so as flippantly as twelve year olds regarded things like age, and Shiro felt disappointment swell in his belly. 

“Oh…” 

Shiro made it a point to come over to Matt’s house as often as he could manage. For the sake of his conscious, only half of his motives were ulterior. He really did enjoy hanging out with Matt. They both loved science, after all.

“Is Keith home?” Shiro would try to ask as discreetly as he could manage when it was a daily question. 

“No, he’s never home. Just like last time.” 

Shiro hoped he wasn’t getting on Matt’s nerves already. He should stop asking. Stop feeling butterflies for a guy in highschool when he wasn’t even a teenager yet. His own parents wouldn’t be approving of that anyways even if Keith did agree to date him. 

What do you do when you date someone? Shiro only knew what he saw in the movies and thinking about it just made him nervous so he stopped. 

“Shiro wants Keith to be his boyfriend. That’s why he keeps asking.” Pidge tapped away on a laptop from behind them, and even though she was only eight years old, Shiro still felt like she knew better about things than him. But right now he was too busy wondering if she was a psychic. 

“I never said that...” He tried to defend himself as his cheeks grew hot. Matt blinked in confusion. 

“Boyfriend?” Pidge laughed to herself at Matt’s surprise, Shiro wanted to crawl into a hole and promptly cease to exist. It wasn’t weird to like Keith, he didn’t think. After all, he was cool...and nice… and he had a pretty smile…  Is it weird? Will Matt think I’m weird? 

Wait, focus. 

Shiro was about to defend himself, and he opened his mouth to speak just as Matt continued. 

“Keith is dumb, mostly. You can find a better boyfriend than him. Plus, you’re only twelve anyways. Everyone knows you have to be in highschool to have one of those.” 

“Really?” Shiro had never heard of this rule before. He could have sworn he knew eighth graders who were dating. 

“Yeah, duh.” Quickly, he counted on his fingers how many years he had to go until high school. It wasn’t many, just two. He could like Shiro for two more years and then ask him to be his boyfriend. It was an easy enough plan.

* * *

“People shouldn’t treat you like that…” Shiro says this to Keith, but he’s staring at the mottled blue and purple bruise that’s blossomed on Keith’s left cheekbone. Hesitantly, he looks down at the ice-pack he’s been clutching in his grasp for the past five minutes. Working up the courage to make himself known in an obviously private moment took just that: courage. Shiro thinks he’s improving in that aspect at least. Now he can talk to Keith without blushing (mostly) and he can voice his concern without said voice wavering (also mostly). 

Right now he doesn’t have to worry about blushes or his pubescent voice failing on him because he’s too busy being angry that someone--anyone would lay a hand on Keith to hurt him. He’s still beautiful beaten up, though. But that thought is jarring to Shiro and he pushes it away.

“People treat me a lot of ways.” Keith says without turning around. He’s sitting on the roof like he always does and Shiro is watching him through the open window in Keith’s bedroom. Despite the fact that the door was cracked, it’d still taken Shiro a good chunk of minutes to walk past the familiar bumper stickers that said ‘BEWARE’ and ‘Alien Crossing’ into uncharted territory. Well, it wasn’t  _ so  _ uncharted. Shiro has been in Keith’s bedroom before for miniscule things that shouldn’t have stuck in mind but did. Things like helping Keith move his dresser, or coming to tell Pidge dinner was ready (she holed herself up in Keith’s room sometimes).

So he’s staring at Keith like he always does, wanting desperately to know what happened and at the same time not. His mind whirls over the possibilities and they’re each more upsetting than the last. Shiro knows he’s too biased for his own good, but he doesn’t think that’s relevant to the fact that the people Keith decides to bring into his life (and bed) aren’t deserving of even breathing his same air. So it isn’t an unlikely jump to guess that he got caught up with the wrong person at the wrong time. 

Keith isn’t shy about his sexuality or his exploits, and somehow he manages to be a complete promiscuous badass while still acting as the mature figurehead for his younger adoptive siblings Matt and Pidge, but Shiro can’t help but worry that his ‘in your face attitude’ is what causes things like this. Not that it makes it better. If he would just date (probably the wrong term considering Keith never kept any of them around long enough for anyone to know their names) people who weren’t jerk bags, he’d have infinitely less problems in life. Shiro knows it’s impossible for him to speak from any place of experience on this, mainly considering he’s never dated anyone before, but he can’t help feel it anyways. 

_ I would never take you for granted like this... _

If anything, feeling this way just makes Shiro angrier more often at how helpless he feels in all of it. He can’t stand up for Keith, can’t come to his aid. Even if he did, it isn’t like he’s strong enough to do anything worthwhile. It’s weird, Shiro thinks, to see for the first time a point of view in which Keith isn’t on top of the world. Maybe that’s dramatic, but Matt says ever since they moved in with their uncle Coran after their parents died, Keith felt like he had to take charge. Like it was his job to take care of Matt and Pidge no matter what. It’s admirable. Shiro thought so then and he still thinks so now.

He also thinks it’s worth mentioning that these sorts of problems seem to fly under the radar for everyone but him, and maybe it’s because Shiro does nothing but watch Keith, but he would also like to think it’s because he cares and is observant subsequently. It’s the reason why he came to find Keith after the guy had slammed the front door shut behind him holding his face. Shiro was worried, and he tended to do that more nowadays than not. He wasn’t sure when, maybe it was because he was always around, but at some point after his fourteenth birthday, Keith had started confiding small things in him.  _ Don’t tell Pidge _ , he’d say after a certain story,  _ She’ll just worry _ .  

Did Keith not think Shiro was doing the same thing? He didn’t risk asking on the chance that this newly budding trust would wilt. So he was standing here, wanting desperately to be of some use comfort wise,  yet also aware of how Keith needed his alone time (the last thing he’d want to do is intrude) so instead he continues to stand there like the epitome of awkward, mentally kicking himself for not having a better sense of social prowess. 

“They shouldn’t.” He manages to get out in a delayed response to Keith’s earlier statement. 

“You wanna tell them that?” Keith finally turns to face Shiro and the swelling of his face has Shiro’s brows furrowing, he grips the ice pack tighter. 

“I want  _ you  _ to tell them that.” 

“How do you think I got this shiner, huh?” Keith pauses, letting out a sigh before he pats the roof tiles beside him. “C’mon. It’s weird if you just stand there”

Shiro doesn’t need to be told twice. In a matter of moments he’s climbing up over the window sill to sit beside Keith, glancing down at the man’s palm braced against the sandpaper tiles and fighting the urge to hold it. Shiro’s always holding himself back from things like this (all concerning Keith), but he knows it’s for the better because Keith is almost twenty and there’s no way he’d even look in his direction. 

Of course, he gets his hopes up enough for that last part in his dreams. Ones that paint his subconscious in vivid colors and scents and mostly they feature Keith confessing to him or kissing him, looking at him with that rare smile of his or holding his hand. It’s really embarrassing that Shiro wakes up either hard or a bit more  _ explosively _ . Wet dreams are relatively new for him and they are very, very mortifying. 

“Can’t believe you’re gonna be in high school, kid.” Keith mentions it wistfully as he’s staring up at the stars and Shiro feels his heart rate go up. He knows this isn’t how things work, but since Keith put off going to college for almost two years, it was almost as if he were closing the gap between them. Two freshman, except one was in college. It makes it seem like he’s not so far away, maybe within reach, and Shiro keeps replaying that long ago conversation with Matt in his head until he feels his hands clamming up. 

“I think that means I’m not a kid anymore, right?” Keith brings his eyes over to him as Shiro speaks, and when they meet he thinks this must be how constellations feel, connected in a line of sight. It’s cheesy and mushy but Shiro’s always attributed Keith to the stars. Keith gives him a little side smile, purposely looking him up and down playfully. 

“I dunno, you’re still a stringbean to me.” It makes Shiro feel the threat of a blush that he tries his best to hide. When school starts, he thinks, he’s going to join the football team. He’ll get strong enough to lift Keith up with one arm, or carry him bridal style, and then he’ll never be called stringy or beany again. 

“I won’t be forever.” He tries not to make it sound petulant or defensive and mostly he thinks he succeeds, but the sentiment seems to hit somewhere with Keith because he turns thoughtful. 

“Guess nothing lasts forever after all.” Shiro thinks Keith might be wrong about that. But then again he’s not well-versed in the duration of crushes. A lifetime, probably, is the answer he comes up with.

But nothing lasting forever is something that has him looking away from Keith (which is something he does rarely). Most of the stars he’s seeing are dead. Shiro knows this from one of the first science classes he’s taken. Their lingering light is just what’s filtering down from millions and millions of light years away to become visible by the human eye. And just like that, one day, it will cease to come through. Stars can end in supernovas and Shiro thinks that’s what this night is. 

It’s the beginning of the end of their light. Keith is leaving for college the next day and Shiro is beginning a new chapter in his life and the previous things he’s been used to hearing and seeing will shift just like the lights in the sky. He knows it’s dramatic because Keith will still come back to visit for breaks and summers, but still Shiro can’t help but feel as if they’re on the precipice of passing the only chance for him to come clean and so-- he decides he’s going to. 

“There’s...something that could.” Shiro starts, and he’s so nervous he can feel every beat of his heart in his ears. Keith turns to him with the raise of a brow. 

“Don’t say ‘time’, I’ve heard that riddle before.” 

“It’s not time.” How is he supposed to set this up? How do guys do it in the movies?

“Alright, I’ll bite then. What is it?” Keith’s looking at him now and Shiro finds it difficult to concentrate on what he was trying to formulate. 

He can’t say something grotesquely cheesy like ‘my love for you’. Mostly because Shiro isn’t even sure if he knows what love is. All he knows is that he wants to tell Keith he’s like cosmic dust glittering in a solar flare, but somehow that sounds even lamer so he doesn’t. He just stares at Keith and lets himself lean a little closer. Matt’s words of needing to wait until high school to have a boyfriend ring through his head but isn’t he technically there? Doesn’t the summer before freshman year count?

“It’s… Well…” There was no good way to do this. No way he could have possibly began this conversation without tripping over his words as if his tongue were a shoelace tying his mouth together. “Feelings--” He starts again. “Sometimes...those last forever.” 

“Feelings.” Keith’s brow arched further, Shiro swallowed thickly. 

“My...feelings for you.” He looks down just as Keith’s eyes widen infinitesimally. Shiro thinks he should leave it at that but now he can’t bring himself to look Keith in the eye so he continues. “I… really like you, Keith. And I would never hurt you. And--” It’s really frustrating to not be the best with words. “And… I think I could be a good... boyfriend.” Now he’s looking up with a face that rivals a tomato and Keith is staring at him with an expression he can’t place. 

In what world was this a good idea? Shiro wishes someone would give him a shovel in this deafening silence so he could dig a hole and hide in it. 

“You feel better after getting that off your chest?” Huh? 

Shiro frowns, confusion seeping into his expression. “Honestly, not yet.” He looks at Keith expectantly until Keith sighs and leans back on his hands. 

“You’re fourteen, Shiro.” It’s not often that Keith actually calls him by his name, so he’s flustered all over again and forgets to respond for a moment. 

“So?” 

“ _ So _ ,” Keith begins, “teenagers never know what they want. Hell, I still don’t know. You’re supposed to go through phases.” Shiro can understand where Keith’s coming from, maybe. It’s nothing new to him. Shiro has been hearing that most of his life. He knows all about how raging his hormones are supposed to be at this point in his life, has gotten The Talk more than once because of it. He gets the logistics but for some reason the concept of his crush on Keith being a fleeting hormonal tendency makes him upset. 

“But that’s not what you are-- not to me. I know what I want, Keith. It’s you.” He doesn’t know where that level of confidence came from suddenly, but Shiro is more than thankful for its presence. 

“You really think so?” 

“I know so.” He’s frowning now as Keith reaches over towards him and for a brief moment Shiro’s breath catches in his chest at the slim prospect of something happening between them. 

Instead, Keith gently flicks Shiro in the center in his forehead and moves to stand up. 

“Then do me a favor,” He says, brushing off his jeans and giving Shiro a smile to make his stomach melt. “Tell me when you’re older.” 


	2. Chapter 2

“So, as I was saying-- this crazy amount of light is caused by intense radiation blasting out from a central engine,” Hunks voice is like excited rapid fire, and he only takes a moment’s reprieve to take a large bite of his cafeteria cheeseburger before continuing with a full mouth. “That’s the accretion disc surrounding a supermassive black hole--”

“Hunk, buddy, my man,” Lance interrupts him. “All this astronomy is super cool, don’t get me wrong--”

“Astrophysics, actually--” 

“But I got no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Black holes, Lance! You know-- really big? Sucks up everything within a hundred mile radius or more?  _ Could kill everything we know and love _ ?” 

Shiro listens to his two friends banter for a few more seconds until he decides to intervene, they’re sitting on the stairs of their high school in their senior year, and Shiro can’t wrap his head around the idea of being so close to graduating. Hadn’t he only just started high school? It felt like forever ago and at the same time, yesterday. 

“I thought no light could escape a black hole?” Hunk whirls towards Shiro at his comment, obviously thankful to have someone with a scientific ear listening. 

“Well, right-- but see this isn’t  _ just _ a black hole, it’s actually a galaxy. A really active one. The nuclei is so bright that it outshines the rest of it on a telescope. The hole is just at the center of it, y’know-- as black holes are, and I was just thinking about how we’re all here living our lives with a  _ giant impenetrable vacuum _ at the center of our home galaxy.” Hunk sucks in a breath through his teeth, nodding to himself before blowing the air from his lungs. “Kinda scary.” 

“I feel that, though.” Lance is attempting to down the final remnant of his milkshake, eliciting a loud noise that should have made it obvious the cup was empty yet clearly snuck past his radar. Shiro deadpans at the scene, a single eye twitching as Lance continues speaking. “Aren’t we all just waiting to be sucked up into the nothingness?”

“More like you’re waiting to be sucked  _ off _ .” Hunk snorts at his own joke, finishing his burger in the next bite just as Lance jumps to his own defense.

“Excuse you, I have been sucked off before. Plenty.  _ And--” _ Lance jabs his finger playfully against Hunk’s chest. “It was great.” 

“Uh-huh.” Hunk’s tone is a mixture of smugness and amusement. Shiro can’t help but join in.

“That one time during Truth or Dare doesn’t count, Lance.” He fights the urge to smile wider at the visible baulking Lance does as a reaction, and instead leans his hands back on the cement. 

“Sorry we can’t all be varsity football players,  _ Captain _ .” Shiro doesn’t hide the smile that pulls over his lips at that, causing his mind to wander. Things like past aspirations like becoming strong enough to lift Keith in his arms. Glancing down at his biceps now, however hidden beneath the faux leather of his jacket, they had definitely increased in size. He made sure of that, taking as many extra days in the weight room as he possibly could. Distantly, he can hear Hunk retaliating with:

“Well,  _ I’m _ not a varsity football player…” And Lance turns his accusatory pointer finger now to Hunk’s face. 

“Not the point, Hunk!” 

Shiro’s phone buzzes in his pocket and causes him to look away from the scene entirely, grappling with the dark denim of his jeans to pull the device free. 

[Pidge:] Thought you’d like to know that your boy just got home for the weekend. ;)

Shiro feels his face heat up infinitesimally at the text. There’s only one person she could be talking about of course, it’s Keith; and the very notion of Keith being referred to as  _ his _ boy is enough to fluster him into next week. Shiro may have grown up in many ways over the past four years, but he thinks maybe Keith will always resurface that nervous boy who dropped pencils at the mere sight of him. It isn’t a bad thing, he doesn’t think. Shiro doesn’t mind the fact that it’s been almost six years (of total crush time) and Keith still makes his mouth go dry and his hands clam up. If anything it adds to the promise he made all those years ago; that his feelings wouldn’t change. 

One day, Keith would see that. 

“Shiro? Shiro!” Roughly, a hand grabs his ear and tugs. “Earth to Captain Space Out!” Lance’s voice is like a gong being hit too close to his ear, and Shiro flinches away from it instinctively. 

“Ow-- I’m right here. What?” Frowning, he rubbed at the reddened skin.

“You were zoned out, man.” Hunk offers. 

“Sorry… What did you--” 

“I was  _ saying _ ,” Lance interjects. “That the last game of the year is this tomorrow, right? Friday?” Shiro’s eyes widen as if somehow he could have possibly forgotten, but suddenly the idea of it is much more daunting. Football games are nothing special. He enjoys them, sure. But at the end of the day it’s always just a game; win or lose. Now, he thinks about Keith having come home from college for the weekend, and how Matt and Pidge will both inevitably be coming to the game. But no, he doesn’t even need to rationalize that Keith will come because of his younger siblings. With a flutter in his heart, Shiro knows Keith would want to see him play and support him. Especially at his last game.

It’s one of the things Shiro loves about him after all. Instead of focusing on it for any longer however, he finally answers Lance. 

“Yeah…It is.” He gulps down every nervous fiber in him that threatens to over think the idea of Keith watching his game, cheering for him, chanting his name--

Okay, that one was  _ really _ off limits. 

“You don’t look so good, dude. You okay?” Hunk asks, and a reassuring hand clasps his shoulder. He’s fine, he’s totally fine. 

“Yeah, Hunk. Thanks. Guess I’m just a little nervous.”

“You,” Lance starts. “Nervous? What gives?” Shiro licks his lips, wiping his palms against his jeans. 

“Uh… Keith’s home this weekend.” 

It was all he needed to say for understanding and conspiratorial smiles to cross their faces. Shiro knew he was only moments away from having to aggressively change the subject. Of course both Lance and Hunk were no strangers to his crush turned infatuation turned slow burn. Not that he talked about Keith all too often (okay, maybe he did), but questions started to raise themselves for a number of reasons throughout Shiro’s high school career thus far. 

For starters, Shiro is the type of student who is dutifully respectful, never late to class. He takes his homework very seriously and never fails to help those around him. According to Lance, the one time Shiro raised his voice to a teacher in their first year who mentioned Keith’s bad reputation once she found out who Matt was, everyone understandably lost their shit. It was the first time Takashi Shirogane had received detention, and the last time Keith’s name was brought up in that class. 

Aside from his dominatingly protective side, however, were the rumors that outlined Shiro’s popularity as a whole. Being now the varsity quarterback, captain of the football team, all around hot guy, his name was a common utterance around the school; and though most of his reputation was nothing but positive, even he could not get away from insinuations that his nice guy routine might all be a ruse. Afterall, why didn’t he ever date? 

Anyone that knew Shiro personally would have never doubted his sincerity, but it didn’t stop the hushed whispers that wound their way through the halls during passing period, hiding in his bedroom, behind the bleachers, or in the locker rooms when the people he’d taken physical pleasure in would confess their feelings to him. It never failed to make him feel guilty, but that didn’t mean he was able to reciprocate.

* * *

  
  


After school that day, Shiro went straight home with Matt without passing his house down the street so much as a sideways glance. 

“Don’t look too excited.” Matt teases before they go inside. 

“I’ll do my best.”

The house is quiet when they enter, causing Shiro’s hopes to sink slightly on the off chance that Keith left in between when Pidge had texted him and now. The difference was only a matter of hours-- how many? A little over three. Plenty of time for Keith to go out with friends from the area, or something else entirely. Shiro found his lips pulling downwards into a frown just as he hears footsteps coming down the stairs.

Shamelessly, his face lights up the moment he sees Keith. The man looks about the same as the last time Shiro had seen him a few months ago. But now, he notices the moment Keith reaches up to push his overgrown bangs out of his face, he has a new tattoo on the same arm as the little alien head on his inner wrist. The newest edition is a beautiful, thin cursive font that takes up the majority of his forearm and reads ‘Knowledge Or Death’. Shiro wants to trace the letters with his fingertips. First though, he smiles as Keith says: 

“There you are,” Shiro pretends Keith’s only speaking to him. “Was starting to wonder where my welcome-wagon was.” Unfortunately, Matt beats Shiro to the punch in hugging Keith.

“Did you change your major to alliteration?” Keith ruffles Matt’s hair with a laugh, looking up at Shiro with a quirk of his brow the second his arms were free. 

“You just gonna stand there, Stringbean?” Shiro came forward as if summoned, letting his embrace of Keith speak for itself in terms of his muscular development. His arms slide around Keith’s waist, and it takes most all of his restraint to do so in a strictly platonic way. What he wants is to let his hands linger, wants to brush them over the sharpness of Keith’s hipbone… But he can’t, so he settles for the incredible realization that Keith has to lean up to get his arms around Shiro. Before he can stop himself, his lips tug up into a smirk. 

“Who are you calling Stringbean anymore, Kogane? I’m taller than you now.” Keith takes this information in as a shock to his system, moving backwards and openly gaping at Shiro. His hands move up Shiro’s arms, stopping short of his shoulders.

“No way--” He starts, slapping his chest playfully. “Jacket. Off. Lemme see.” Shiro fights the heat in his cheeks and does as he’s told, Keith gives his biceps a trial squeeze. “Holy shit. Look at you, Terminator. You live off protein and nails now, or what?” 

Two things happen in that moment. On the one hand, Shiro feels his pride swelling at having his hard work noticed by the very man he was putting the effort in for. On the other, he can’t help but feel sinking disappointment at how blaringly obvious it is that Keith still considers him nothing but a child. Even now, at eighteen, he isn’t being sized up as a potential candidate, he is the younger relative you see at family functions and make surprised comments about their growth. As far as Shiro is concerned, Keith might as well have said ‘ _ My my, aren’t you getting big! _ ’ 

It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. Still, he wouldn’t let his heart that obviously couldn’t take a clue ruin the jovial atmosphere. 

“Don’t forget the milk,” Shiro forces his lips into a smile though it doesn’t reach his eyes, and moves away from Keith. “Protein, nails, and milk.” 

“That explains it. I hate milk.” 

Matt speaks up from the side, reminding Shiro of his presence that he’d forgotten entirely. “That explains why you’re kinda short.” At the insult, Keith turns his attention to Matt. 

“What was that? You forget who you’re dealing with? C’mere--” With Matt pulled into a headlock, Shiro turned towards the kitchen on the pretense of wanting a drink and lets his face fall along with his waning hope. 

* * *

  
  


“Shiro...how’d your shoulders get so big, huh?” Keith’s voice is the audible manifestation of inebriated, and his whiskey-laden breath fans against Shiro’s jaw in a manner that should be illegal. The night thus far has been a wild ride to say the absolute least, and as Shiro moves his hand against Keith’s lower back to steady him in place, he can’t help the loose-lipped smile that tugs at his mouth. 

“Dedication.”

* * *

 

Their final game. It had been more than Shiro would have ever imagined. Being the Captain of the team came with perks of course, his was probably the most well-known name on campus, but that isn’t what he had gotten out of it. What had really driven the euphoria of their win home for him was that it had been under  _ his _ leadership. Of course he could never take responsibility over their coach. But throughout countless practices and losses, Shiro had been there to push their team forward, to keep their heads high and their shoulders back. He had believed in this group of people and together they had an entire stadium cheering for them. 

Keith was the only person he honed in on. Shiro had found where Keith, Matt, and Pidge were in the stands before the whistle was blown, kept having to tell himself not to look away from the field. He’d failed that task on a few occasions, panting with exertion from the menagerie of plays only to see Keith’s eyes trained on him, rooting for him… It was all he’d needed. And maybe he’d shown off a bit too. There was nothing wrong with that.

After the clock ran out, and the whistles and cheers had died down, Shiro had been caught up in a daze. Pulled into a hug here, given a high five there, it was borderline overwhelming. Lance caught up to him shortly after that, (after Keith had hugged him and said he was proud. Proud!)  and before he knew it he was being carted off to what would apparently be ‘the best party of the year’. Shiro wasn’t one for partying, but Lance had vehemently refused to take no for an answer. 

So here he was, only a matter of hours into the party with a drunk Keith hanging off of him. 

“ _ What are you doing here?” Keith had said to him, already a little tipsy.  _

_ “Lance brought me--” Shiro didn’t like the look on Keith’s face. Was it disappointment? Did Keith not want to see him? He tried to think back to how divided Keith kept his home and private life, suddenly having no other interest that seeing them intermingle. “What are  _ you _ doing here?” _

_ “This is Nyma’s party… Allura brought me.” Nyma, older sister of their running back Rollo. Small world. So this was a college party.  _

_ “Is it bad that I’m here?” Shiro asked in a lower voice, stepping forward (made possible by Liquid Courage). Keith shook his head, giggling to himself as he did so.  _

_ “You’re not supposed to see me drunk.” _ I’ve seen you have sex. I think that tops this.  _ Shiro wanted to say, but didn’t. _

_ “I don’t mind.”  _

* * *

  
  


“How much did you drink?” Shiro asks with mild concern as Keith sways again, leaning them both into the wall. This is a scene out of his wildest dreams (wet or otherwise), only perhaps Keith wasn’t drunk for those, but nonetheless. Shiro is glad that Keith is with him right now. It’s better than him being around anyone else who may try to take advantage of him-- not that he thinks Keith would let them without a fight. In fact, Shiro would argue that one of the most attractive qualities about Keith was how he held his ground no matter what. Once, he’d witnessed some guy at a diner call Keith ‘princess’ and promptly find himself with a fist to the face. That’s the kind of guy he was. 

Shiro could never look away. 

“Enough.” Is all Keith gives him as an answer, his index and middle finger distracting both of them by trailing pointedly down Shiro’s chest. It’s hard to hold his concentration, hard to figure out where the line is here. This could be everything he’s ever wanted but he’d hate himself forever if he let them do anything Keith would regret. Shiro allows himself to lean farther into the wall, the haze of alcohol causing his own brain to swim as he attempted to concentrate. “You used to be so little… Like one of those cute baby ducks that follow people around…” 

Okay, so, he could definitely be feeling the ‘cute’ part. But duck? Not so much. 

“People grow up, Keith.” The maturity he exudes is only partially illegitimate. Mostly Shiro feels like he’s the more level-headed one out of all of his friends. Still… he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t trying to outdo himself in an attempt to seem more appealing...older. 

“How old are you now anyways?” 

“Eighteen.” It doesn’t feel like enough. It never feels like enough when Keith is the sun and the stars and Shiro is stuck down on earth, unable to do anything except bask in the beautiful glow and lament the space and time in between them. 

Keith turns thoughtful, looks over to the side of them where a drink sits forgotten. By Keith? Shiro doesn’t know, but the man leans over and takes hold of the cup before Shiro can suggest against the idea. Hasn’t he heard of how dangerous that is? Within a second or two, the contents are knocked back and Keith’s smiling wider than he was before. Even drunk, he’s radiant and everything Shiro wants and-- 

And he has to make sure he gets home safely. 

“We should go--” Shiro starts, Keith interrupts him. 

“You tryin’ to take me home? I’m not officer, drunk.” His words are slurred, not by much but enough for Shiro to curse the heavens and any maker out there. It isn’t as if there had ever been a hope for this situation to come of itself naturally (especially in a way that works out for him), but as if out of a fantasy Keith keeps staring at Shiro’s lips and touching his chest and god damn he’s acting like he wants to make out but Shiro knows he can’t let him. 

“I’m not  _ trying _ to take you home, I  _ am _ taking you home.” 

“You can’t even drive…” Keith’s beginning to pout now, leaning against Shiro’s body, lips ghosting across the sensitive skin of his neck and sending a shockwave of sparks up his entire body. This isn’t fair, he screams to himself internally, teeth gritting against his own buzz. 

“Your house is just a few blocks away. We can walk.” 

“Are you sure you want to?” It’s spoken in a seductive whisper against his earlobe and Shiro has to physically bite back a groan in response, even still-- his breath is shaky on the exhale and his fingers tighten their steadying grip on Keith’s hip. If he grips any harder, there’s a chance it’ll bruise, and for some reason the idea resonates somewhere deep within Shiro. The notion of leaving a mark on Keith to remind him of how cruel he can be under the influence of alcohol…

To make sure that he doesn’t forget it was Shiro he sought out; Shiro he came on to… 

“No,” he admitted, hands moving up to hold Keith’s shoulders, pushing until he forced an arm’s length in between their bodies. Even from the simple proximity, Shiro felt like he was on fire. “But I  _ have _ to. Let’s go.” 

Walking back with Keith is as thrilling as it is a nightmare. The man is clearly drunk to the point of no return, and Shiro tries his absolute best not to let that seep into the ego boost he’d just had.  _ Are you sure you want to?  _ He thinks back on the words and how they tumbled out Keith’s smirking mouth, how his glazed eyes had stared up at him with what Shiro recognized as unbridled lust. He’d seen it enough in others to know what it looked like. 

They hold hands to make sure Keith doesn’t fall over, and mostly because Shiro wants an excuse to finally lace their fingers together. It’s small and insignificant compared to the idea that he could have had sex with the man of his dreams tonight but somehow-- it’s enough in its own way. Looking down, he muses that they fit nicely together. 

“There’s just-- so many of ‘em, you know?” Shiro’s eyes snap back up to Keith, who had been speaking for an unknown length of time Shiro realizes belatedly. 

“So many of what?” And he can’t help the amused raise to his brow.

“Stars, aren’t you paying attention to me?” Always. 

“I am now, sorry.” A small laugh escapes Shiro’s lips, and he fights against the sobering effect the crisp night air is having on him. If he sobers entirely, he may drop Keith’s hand out of embarrassment, and that’s something he never wants to do for the rest of his life.

“There’s so many stars…” Keith continues on again, looking up and swaying backwards as he does so. Once, Shiro has to reach out quickly to grab him, arm snaking around Keith’s waist. 

“...Careful.” Shiro only lets his eyes remain locked with Keith’s for exactly three seconds before he goes back to walking casually beside him. “Go on. About the stars?” 

“Yeah…” Keith recovers, squeezing Shiro’s hand in his own and causing Shiro’s heart to soar. “I just always think, like-- that’s  _ us _ , you know?” 

_ Us…  _

“As in..?”

“Like the whole world.”  _ Oh.  _ “That’s all we are, Shiro. Just stars waiting to go out with a bang or fizzle away into nothing. Until all our light fades and we’re forgotten.” So drunk Keith was deep Keith, got it. 

“Not all of us are forgotten.” Shiro adds, bumping his shoulder with Keith’s playfully. 

“Not yet. Just means their lights brighter.” _ Not as bright as yours.  _

“Mm,” Shiro hums noncommittally, his eyes turning to the sky with the stars in question. They lay out before them like an infinite blanket, dazzling and gleaming. “Stars give me an existential crisis.” Keith laughed at that. They were almost home. 

“What, why?” 

“I guess it just reminds me of how small we are. We’re all just the slightest specks in the universe expected to be great. I have to pay taxes once I get a job even though all we are is cosmic dust on an orbiting rock in the vast expanse of nothing and everything at the same time. It’s a lot to digest.” Despite the topic matter, Shiro finds himself laughing as well. 

“Oh my god--” Keith starts, “You’re a nihilist.” 

“Am not.” They were both smiling. 

“You so are. How much do you like Linkin Park?” 

“Hey, they’re a good band--”

“I knew it!” 

* * *

 

Shiro doesn’t spend the night. Instead, he puts a glass of water and aspirin next to Keith’s bed and tells him to sleep well. Keith is asleep almost before his head hits the pillow. It’s easily one of the most difficult things he’s walked away from. 

In the morning, he wakes up with a slight headache and a furrow to his brows. Keith is a grown man, he thinks to himself. There’s no need to worry. Still, Shiro finds himself with the nearest pair of jeans he owns pulls up over his toned thighs, barely exchanging his shirt for something fresher before he’s out of the door and headed to Matt’s. Did Keith take the aspirin? Does he hate Shiro for holding his hand-- Suddenly, Shiro pales as the thought takes hold and festers within his mind. 

Despite ensuring that he was respectful to Keith above all else, there is still a very good chance that Keith will feel uncomfortable with what happened. He knew very well about Shiro’s feelings, there’s no doubt Keith would be regretting his every action from last night, trying to come up with a way to let Shiro down easily once more. 

The probability of that slows his steps, though he continues forward nonetheless. If he beats Keith to the punch, then it should absolve the situation of any lingering awkwardness, right? All he has to do is pull Keith aside, and let him know that he’s fully aware Keith wasn’t himself last night (which he was), and that he certainly doesn’t expect anything out of him (which he doesn’t). 

Still, Shiro can’t forget the way Keith’s fingers fit within his own.

He knocks on the door briefly before entering, long since passing the need to actually be let in, and is met with the smell of breakfast being cooked. In the kitchen, Coran hums to himself loudly wearing his famous ‘Quiznak The Cook’ (nobody knew what it meant, but Coran insisted it was a family heirloom) apron and armed with a spatula. At the sound of the door, he greeted Shiro as if he were expected. 

“Shiro! Good to see you’re up and raring to go on a Saturday. Sidle on over here and we’ll get’cha something to eat!” Matt and Pidge sat at the table, giving him twin looks of terror. 

Because Coran couldn’t cook for shit.

But that was a secret they would all keep from him to the grave. 

_ “He’s too nice!” Pidge had exclaimed once in utter frustration. “It’ll just hurt his feelings.”  _

_ “So, what? We let him poison us?”  _

_ “It isn’t that bad, Keith.”  _

_ “It’s that bad.” _

Shiro sits down as he was told, giving a thanks to Coran for having enough food for him (as always), but can’t stop his eyes from scanning the room and the mouth of the stairs. No Keith. Not yet, anyways. It was only around nine in the morning. Pidge catches his wandering stare.

“He’s still sleeping.” She mentions, standing her knife and fork up then leaning them in towards each other until they made a tower. “Long night?” Shiro doesn’t miss the upwards raise of her brow or the slight quirk to her lips, and he frowns in response. 

“Kinda--” Her smile grows. “ _ Not _ like that.” And fades. “He--” Suddenly, Shiro doesn’t want to disclose Keith’s drunken state to the two people he tried (however in vain) to keep those things from. It felt, somehow, like a betrayal to Keith. “--walked me home.” Pidge looks at him as if he’s the worst liar in the world and truth be told there’s a good chance he is. Luckily for him, she doesn’t have time to further interrogate him as heavy, thudding footsteps can be heard coming down the stairs, accented by what Shiro guessed was Keith’s palm making harsh steadying contact with the wall. 

Pidge gave a low whistle as Keith appeared, looking disheveled and like he’d been through hell. Even still, Shiro feels his pulse quicken, and tries to calm his growing anxiety. 

“Morning, Sunshine.” Pidge’s voice couldn’t have possibly contained more sarcasm if it were drenched in it, Keith shoots her a tired glare. 

Time slows in the time it takes Keith’s eyes to wander in his direction, but when they do, they pass over him as if it were any other morning. As if Keith hadn’t tried to seduce him (that’s probably what he was doing), and they hadn’t bonded over their existence in the universe the night before. Shiro isn’t sure if this was an upgrade or a downgrade to what he had been expecting. 

“My head’s killing me…” 

“I left you aspirin, did you see it?” Pidge’s eyes turn to Shiro only a moment before Keith’s do, and his brows furrow. 

“You were here, Shiro?” 

What-- 

“I...yeah.” Shiro’s voice is as if it were as obvious as it should have been. “We walked home from Nyma’s together.” Keith sits down at the table heavily, and suddenly Coran is there to put a steaming mug of black coffee in front of him. 

“Know it’s really bitter--” He starts when Keith takes one sip and promptly spits it back out. “--but that’s how you know it’s good! Nothing better for a hangover remedy than thick, coagulating, black coffee.” 

“Coran,” Pidge was rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Have you ever had a hangover?” 

“Nope, little one! Can’t say that I have. Old Coran’s too quick for any liquor to get the jump on him.” 

“Incredible.” 

Next to Pidge, Matt speaks up, most likely as a way to avoid the food that was being shoveled onto his plate. “I’ll drink it if you don’t want it, Keith.”

“You like sludge?” Keith’s voice is raspy and lower than usual. 

“I’m used to drinking it now from so many science project all-nighters.” Matt laughs a bit to himself as the mug is passed off. Shiro is hardly focusing on anything else in the room.

“Do you remember getting home at all?” It’s posed as a teasing question, and it’s all Shiro can do to seek out information without giving anything away. But what was there? Nothing. He has to remind himself of that. Nothing happened between him and Keith even if it felt as if Shiro had finally gotten to see Keith for all his imperfections and all his nuances. It was a Keith he’d never been exposed to before, it was exhilarating and Shiro didn’t want it to be lost, only to be kept in his own memories. One-sided, once again. 

Keith rubs a hand over his face and says, “Honestly I don’t even remember the party after-- what was it… my fifth shot? When I see Allura next I’m gonna kill her.”

Shiro doesn’t reply. He can’t. Because his face has fallen and he’s trying to focus on his food even though it tastes awful. He eats it for Coran and a distraction. The rest of breakfast passes without incident, and Shiro feels guilty but he knows it isn’t possible for him to stay any longer. He gets up from his seat. 

“Sorry guys, I just remembered I have to do something at home.” Matt nods, Pidge gives him a skeptical look. Shiro turns his attention to Coran before looking at Keith. “Thanks for breakfast, Coran. It was great.” 

“No problem, Shiro! Say hello to your mother for me.” 

“Will do.” 

His feet can’t carry him out fast enough. Though it seems as if he just manages to shut the door before he hears it opening once more. Glancing back, Keith is walking towards him. 

“Hey, I--” He stammers, Shiro doesn’t know what to do. What can he say? Keith doesn’t remember. There’s nothing to apologize for. He’d been worrying all morning for nothing. “Did anything...happen last night?” 

Shiro pretends not to understand the implication. “I walked you home. You could barely walk. You rambled on about the stars for a bit--” 

“That isn’t what I mean,” Keith cuts him off and he looks like a mixture of embarrassment and frustration. “Between us, Shiro. Did anything happen  _ between us _ ? I know how I get when I’m drunk.” Shiro forces himself not to dwell on that last sentiment. 

“You, uh…” Keith groaned as if knowing. “I think you tried to come onto me.”

“Tried?” 

“Well, yeah, but that’s when I said I was going to take you home.” Keith stares at Shiro for a moment, as if deep in a thought process Shiro can’t even begin to guess. 

“And that’s it? You just-- stopped me?” It’s the insinuation that makes Shiro angry. 

“Of course-- What kind of man do you think I am, Keith?” And for a moment he doesn’t think he’s going to continue, but a conversation from years ago strikes back into Shiro’s memory in that moment. Images of a rooftop and Keith with a bruised cheek. “I told you I’d never mistreat you like anyone else did. Remember?”

“I-- Yeah....” 

“So have a bit of faith me in me, alright? Trust me.” 

Keith looked at Shiro in a way that made Shiro think he was being seen for the first time. Not as Matt’s friend, not as a child, but as Takashi Shirogane.

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter hit me hard with sad and tender feels at the same time. I just...love sheith. Also, I just finished Alien Sex Fiend yesterday (finally), so the little alien face tattoo Keith has is an ode to that. God damn, what a great fic. Anyways, thank you to Sochan for commissioning me to create this special piece! i love it and I hope you guys do too. Thank you for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was really emotional over Sheith in general when I wrote this, so it's a bit more introspective than previous chapters LOL. I chalk it up to being Keith's POV. Anyways, thank you for reading like always! If you want to ruin your heart with this ship, listen to Moondust by Jaymes Young. You're welcome.

“So, I got a TA job,” Keith says to Shiro in between bites of salty microwave popcorn. “For Astronomy.” They’re sitting on the couch in Keith’s apartment that he shares with Nyma and Allura watching a documentary about aliens. Shiro is the only person Keith’s ever met that not only agrees to watch them, but likes them too.

“That’s great, where at?”

“Where do you think?” Shiro pauses at that, and Keith visibly watches hope rise and become pressed down in the same instant. He doesn’t guess right away, only raises his brow, so Keith leans over and prods his shoulder. “C’mon, Terminator. Guess.”

Shiro’s cheeks heat faintly at the nickname and it does something subtle to Keith’s ego that he’d rather not address if he can help it.

“Okay, fine. My school?” He says it as if it’s the longshot he doesn’t want to let himself hope for. Or maybe Keith’s thinking up that last part.

“Yeah.” And Shiro laughs a bit, rolls his eyes.

“C’mon. Really?”

Keith’s smile widens. “Really.”

Light dances in Shiro’s eyes at the information, though it’s obvious he’s pushing down excitement. Shiro is always like that, thinking he can hide little things from Keith who’d known him for close to a decade now. He doesn’t know exactly when they’d started hanging out like this. Alone in Keith’s house curled up on the couch together. But it feels nice to have someone like Shiro around. Safe, if Keith allows himself to think as much. Of course, Shiro being who he is, is always very careful and aware of where he positions himself in relation to Keith. Never too close. Never blocking an exit. Keith doesn’t think he’s ever hung around a guy as wholly respectful as Shiro.

Not that it’s a bad thing by any means.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Shiro starts, “I’d say you were following me.” It’s just teasing enough to make Keith laugh again.

“If I was following you, I would have gotten the job the day you started college. I’m a little late.”

“Two years.”

“I’m old.”

“Not _too_ old.” Shiro’s voice is almost imperceptibly softer when he says it, carrying a fondness Keith has never known what to do with.

So all he does is stretch out his leg towards Shiro, kicking the man lightly in the ribs. One day, he knows, he’s going to have to do something about this. The way Keith has fallen into a routine with Shiro sharing his space as often as possible. They both had their own friends. In fact, Keith lived with his two best ones. But being the third wheel was a lot less fun than it sounded, and it already didn’t sound like any in the first place.

There was nothing wrong with having Shiro around. Keith told himself this. Nothing was going on. No cradles robbed in the making of this hangout.

But, that was the thing wasn’t it?

Shiro wasn’t a kid anymore.

A comfortable silence blanketed them as Alien Mysteries provided a soft hum of background Keith wasn’t paying attention to. He was too busy assessing the facts his mind had just provided him (as if he didn’t already know). Shiro sat a leg’s length away from him, with Keith’s foot still touching his hip, with shoulders that should be illegal. _When did he get to be as wide as a door?_ Keith thinks as his eyes travel up the man’s neck to his chiseled jaw.

_That’s not a jaw, that’s a damn seat._

With widening eyes startled by the intrusive thought, Keith turns his head back to the tv. Things that should definitely be off limits to him are thinking trains like that. In his periphery, Keith notices that Shiro turns to subtly watch him, and if asked he’d say it’s the biggest coincidence in the world that he decides then in the perfect moment worry his lower lip with his teeth. It’s a seductive display passed off as innocent mannerisms.

Keith never claimed to be a guy who knew what he was doing (or why)  at any given time.

* * *

 

The first day of the semester is one that brings an avalanche of memories back to Keith as he walks through the halls. Unfamiliar or not, school is school. He can’t believe he’s taken a job that thrusts him back to the place he couldn’t wait to leave. He wasn’t a bad student by any means, it just never felt like where he belonged. Astronomy though, how could it get any better than that? Keith knew if he had to spend the rest of his life doing something it’d be looking at the stars.

It should be intimidating as hell to walk into a lecture hall filled with close to two-hundred people and know that at some point he’s going to have to address them as an authoritative figure, but the moment Keith walks into the room he spots Shiro sitting only a few rows back and somehow his heart calms. Being able to lock onto a familiar face is helpful in more ways than he can express.

Then a girl walks in, with flowing red hair and an aura around her that just screams ‘purity’. She looks like one of those soft spoken people who have a voice like light bells and sparkling eyes that listen to everything you say without interruption. In other words, she’s pretty. That’s the first thing Keith notices. The second thing is that she sits next to Shiro which isn’t far-fetched (it’s a full class), but Keith instantly picks up on the way her eyes swing over to him and hold.

Florona. That’s the name that belongs to her. Keith finds this out after reading off roll and trying not to smile when he says Shiro’s name and receives a playful salute in response. This is his first day on the job after all and it’d be unprofessional to let the fact that he and Shiro know each other become common knowledge. After he says it however, Florona looks at Shiro and smiles softly. For a moment, their mouths are moving around words that Keith can’t try to discern because there’s a hundred or so names he still has to get through. As a mental side note, he wonders why the hell he’s being forced to take roll for a college lecture class. Typically, assigned seats made this sort of thing unnecessary. But Keith doesn’t stew on it for long.

Astronomy is something he’s passionate about, so when the professor finally decides to show up and do his job, Keith finds himself just as taken with the material as any dutiful student. It was the concept more so than the actual science behind it. Thinking about the vastness of space sometimes threatened to give him an existential crisis. Years ago, he wouldn’t have thought of it like that. But once, someone who walked him home from a party mentioned the idea and Keith had never forgotten it. Oddly enough, it was everything else about the night that’d been lost to his memory.

That night, where moonlit walks and galactic ideas of where something as small as a human being could fit within the matter of the universe were all that mattered. Keith had the answer for that. Humans fit in between each other’s fingers, anchored by the solidness of the other. Though, he’d never said that aloud. Had no one to say it to. It was a cheesy concept anyways; not everything had to be something wax poetic about space after all.

Keith watches Florona in the moments when lecture dulls or causes his eyes to drift. Normally, he’d worry about being caught staring, but in this situation there was no fear of it. Florona’s eyes didn’t leave Shiro. Shiro’s eyes only leave the projector screen to look at Keith.

There’s a smugness somewhere in there that Keith ignores.

The first day of class passes without much more incident.  

The second is when Shiro decides to text him throughout class even though neither of them are permitted to use their phones.

 **[Shiro]** I don’t think you could look more bored if you tried.

 **[Keith]** ur supposed to b looking at the screen anyways, smartass.

They both fight a smile.

 **[Shiro]**  Something about defining the difference between night and day just doesn’t catch my eye.

 **[Keith]** if this is the part where i say ‘wat does catch ur eye’ and you try to suck up to the teacher, i’ll fail ur homework.

 **[Shiro]** Guess I’d need a personal tutor then to make up the points. ;)

Keith opens the messaging app and closes it three times. Finally, he’s able to respond while biting the inside of his cheek.

 **[Keith]** Don’t be inappropriate, young man.

Shiro puts his phone away, after giving Keith a smirk and a wink.

Sometime during the fourth week, Keith finds himself agitated. It’s in a way that has him tapping his nails on the desk in front of him, at one point distracting the professor mid-lecture who cuts Keith a sideways glare. He stops tapping.

Florona, however, won’t stop giggling. Keith can’t hear the sound but he _can_ see the dainty bounce of her shoulders as she covers a hand over her mouth. Laugh at everything he says. Isn’t that the oldest trick in the book? The scene makes Keith want to roll his eyes into oblivion. It _also_ makes him want to look in a mirror and ask what the fuck his own problem is. Florona doesn’t matter. If Florona didn’t matter then Florona talking to Shiro _definitely_ shouldn’t matter.

Keith feels his annoyance spike just at the frequency in which he’s mentally saying her name.

It’s not a big deal. It’s not even a deal at all. Keith reassures himself that what he’s feeling is protectiveness on Shiro’s behalf. What if this girl is intending to play him somehow? Use him as arm candy for his good looks? This is nothing but Keith taking up the mantle of older brother.

And yet… even the idea of using ‘brother’ in the same sentence as Shiro now feels off.

He looks up again and meets Shiro’s eyes. Typically, Keith will either smile or playfully roll his eyes, looking away mere seconds after the contact is made. This time though, Keith looks at Shiro and holds. Holds the gaze that catches Shiro off guard at first but just like Keith expects, he doesn’t look away. Shiro never backs down from a challenge. Is that what Keith was doing? Challenging him? To what? Keith didn’t know. Didn’t know anything besides the fact that he wanted Shiro’s eyes on him and nowhere else. That’s where he’d always been looking for as long as Keith has known him.

Ultimately, it is still Keith who looks away just as he feels like the walls are closing in on him, stealing his oxygen faster than he can breathe. It’s everything that’s been slowly kindling within him for years and yet somehow has managed to go unnoticed, and there’s absolutely no part of him that knows how to handle it. When class ends, Keith bolts.

* * *

 

“You totally like him.” Nyma says this to Keith. They’re at a bar and Keith has his forehead down on the counter, groaning some lamentation about his life and emotional shortcomings against the lacquer. Allura responds to the comment that wasn’t directed at her with a delighted gasp and a clap of her hands.

“Oh, Keith this is wonderful news! When will you tell him?”

“There’s nothing to tell him.” Keith’s muffled voice replies. Nyma rolls her eyes and orders another round of drinks for the three of them.

“Keith, listen,” Nyma begins, spinning towards him on her barstool and taking a sip of her drink. “You can be really dense sometimes, but even _you_ have to know how bullshit that is.”

Instead of answering her, Keith turns his attention to the insides of his glass before knocking it back. Does he plan to get drunk and forget the fact that he’s currently warring with a jealousy that belongs nowhere near him?

That would be a yes. Nyma leans from her barstool across to him, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Uh, _hello?_ Earth to Lover Boy?” Keith swats her hand away.

“Don’t call me that.” It comes off edgier than he intends.

“I just don’t understand,” Allura starts, grabbing and holding Nyma’s hand. “Shiro has liked you for years. Why keep this from him?”

Why keep this from him.

At first, there’s too many reasons. He can’t name them all.  But mostly what he’s plagued with is how he’s never felt _this_ way about Shiro before. So what’s different? Why is he suddenly feeling like he’s going crazy and like the thought of Shiro no longer being a constant in his life is enough to send him into a panic attack. Shiro has always been there. Always. What if one day he wasn’t?

Of course Keith realizes how fucked up and selfish that is of him, how selfish it’s _always_ been of him. Never intending to throw Shiro a bone but expecting him to always be waiting in the wings like a lovesick puppy. God, Keith is a jackass for treating him that way. But how can he convey that to Nyma or Allura and have it make any sense? It hardly makes any to him and he’s the one thinking it.

 _What if I end up hurting him?_ Crosses Keith’s mind and for a moment, he’s afraid he accidentally said it out loud. But that’s it. Shiro has spent years showing nothing but devotion to the idea of him. Not living up to his expectations would be so easy. Like meeting a childhood idol only to realize they’re an asshole in real life. Maybe Shiro knows Keith better than that. He does, there’s no maybe. Out of all the people in Keith’s life, he admits to himself in the comfort of his mind that Shiro is the one who knows him best.

Scaring him off would be terrifying. Hurting him would be unbearable.

After a minute or so, Keith realizes he hasn’t answered Allura and sighs. He runs a hand through his hair, already knowing what he’s about to say is going to earn him a stern frown or a smack.

“Because--” he wasn’t good at this, opening up, that is. “Because what if I hurt him?” Allura drops Nyma’s hand in favor of reaching over to hold Keith’s. It’s a familiar, warming squeeze, almost maternal.

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” she admits. “But I do know you’ll try your best. What else can be asked of you?”

 _Everything_ , Keith wants to respond but doesn’t.

When they get home that night, Keith goes into his room and jacks off to the concept of him being a romantically capable human being instead of the emotionally stunted jerk he’s been living as.

He dreams of a world where their roles were reversed, where he’d have the same level of dedication to a crush that spanned appropriate age gaps. A world where aliens threatened the earth and Keith had the courage to pilot a giant robot but not tell Shiro how he felt.

 

* * *

 

In class, it begins once more. Keith starts stewing and pulling away, in on himself in an attempt to put this out of his mind. Whereas previously him and Shiro exchanged small looks throughout the period (Shiro is always staring at him, he’s always _been_ staring at him) now Keith avoids eye contact just as he avoided Shiro’s texts of wanting to hang out for the past three nights. He feels childish and like he’s throwing a tantrum but Florona puts her hand on Shiro’s shoulder sometimes and giggles at things he says before class starts so all it does is validate his childishness. Keith may not be able to stifle his jealousy but he can try to make sure Shiro doesn’t see it. It’s too unfair. All of it is.

If Keith could just give them space, then maybe Shiro could have something that would be his the moment he asked for it.

Shiro, of course, notices something is wrong.

The moment the professor dismisses the class, Keith lets the thunderous stampede of footsteps drown out his aggravating thoughts. Part of him suggests that he should just go out and get laid. That maybe his dry spell is what’s contributing to the unwanted emotions pulling him down like extra gravity. When was the last time, anyways?

Keith can’t remember off the top of his head.

When he looks up, Shiro is there, waiting until the other students stragglers meander out into the hall, and Keith feels his chest tighten. He pretends to busy himself in papers he’s co-grading. In his periphery, Keith notices Florona as she hovers by the door, her eyes on Shiro as if she were waiting to walk with him. Maybe they walk together a lot.

 _Not my business_. Keith tells himself gruffly.

Shiro approaches his desk when the class is empty and there’s nothing but them, nothing but Shiro’s searching eyes filled with concern that Keith wants none of. Has Shiro always been too pure a man for his own good? It makes Keith want to groan. Everything that makes up Shiro is something Keith had spent years in trial and error to find. But in that same vein, Shiro is everything he doesn’t deserve. What Shiro _did_ deserve was to be loved just as he loved. To not be pushed to the side and brushed off until an odd sense of jealousy brought the object of his affection to finally give him attention. And what if that’s all it was? Baseless jealousy. What if Keith decided to finally give Shiro a chance and found that his feelings were like a child who didn’t want to play with a toy but also didn’t want it taken away?

He couldn’t stand to do something so shitty.

_‘I know what I want, Keith. It’s you.’_

_‘You really think so?’_

_‘I know so._

Shiro had been a kid when he confessed.

Now he is a man out of Keith’s league.

Man, life is shitty.

“Hey,” Shiro says to him and Keith fights the urge to not look up at all. But he does, and somehow manages a smile.

“Hey, what’s up?” Too casual.

“That’s what I was going to ask you.” Shiro wasn’t an idiot. Of course he wasn’t planning on letting this go.

“Nothing, really. Just have these papers to--”

“Are you mad at me?” Shiro interjects, worry lacing his expression as he leans closer.

“What? No.” He can’t stay here. Keith stands, gathering the papers strewn across his work space just as Shiro rounds the only object in his path. He reaches to take gentle hold of Keith’s bicep, stopping him dead in his tracks. But Shiro isn’t the type to complain of being ignored or to express hurt over Keith’s lack of interaction. There’s nothing but selfless worry in his voice when he says:

“Keith, if something’s going on, you can tell me.” Why is he always so damn perfect? “Let me be there for you.”

For a split second, Keith thinks he might actually tell him.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Let’s just… can we drop it?” Shiro takes the plea both figuratively and literally, he drops the hold on Keith’s arm.

“Yeah. Sure.” It’s forced, Keith can tell. But there’s no way he’s going to give in to churning ball of remorse that’s tumbling through Keith’s abdomen at keeping it from him. He has to be sure, he tells himself. If he can decide for certain that what he’s feeling for Shiro isn’t just a fluke, he’ll tell him. Even if the thought alone makes him palms sweaty and his stomach feel like it’s going to reject lunch.

“Thanks.” Keith says as Shiro gives him a tight smile and turns to leave. There’s a few minutes, where all he does is sit back down, run fingers through his mop of hair and relax, take deep breaths. Relationships were never this hard when Keith hadn’t had to worry about catching feelings. Within the time it takes Keith to count to ten in deep breaths, his phone buzzes with a text.

 **[Shiro]** Can we hang out soon?  

 **[Keith]** when?

 **[Shiro]** New episode of Alien Mysteries comes out tomorrow...

How could one man know him so well?

 **[Keith]** c u tomorrow @ 8 then.

Shaking his head to himself in silent laughter, Keith finally manages to leave the lecture hall just as students for the next segment begin pouring in. He TA’s for the same professor again in an hour, but for now there’s time to make his way to the cafeteria and get some food.

As he rounds the corner, however, Keith’s breath catches in his throat. The hallway is quiet, with only a trickle of students walking this way or that. Keith hides himself slightly back behind the wall before he can even think of what he’s doing. What is he doing?

Watching (spying) and listening (eavesdropping) on Shiro as Florona stands in front of him with hardly a breath’s width between them. _Save room for Jesus_ Keith’s mind supplies him as his lips naturally turn down into a frown. His heart is pounding at the scene.

“You wanted to tell me something?” That’s Shiro speaking. Keith can barely make out their words from where he’s standing but he never said he was above straining his ear just to avoid being seen.

“Yes, I…” she giggles, clearly nervous, and tucks a lock of red hair delicately behind her ear. “Was wondering if you’d like to go out sometimes?”

Keith’s stomach drops.

“Like… _out_ out?”

She giggles again.

“Yes, Shiro. Like a date. Like an ‘I like you’ date.”

Keith doesn’t stick around to hear the rest.

 The rest of the day is spent in some sort of limbo that Keith really wishes he could figure out. His stupid jealousy swelled in his belly like a spiteful sixth grader who contemplated putting gum in his rival’s hair. It was immature, and caused Keith to groan in frustration and kick his feet just like the little kid he was acting like.

Sometime in the evening he stands before a mirror with a determined expression on his face and an accusatory finger pointed at his reflection.

“Okay, _listen_ . You are not gonna fuck this up for Shiro. Where were you literally months ago with these feelings, huh? Nowhere to be found, that’s where. And whose fault is that? Yeah, yours. So Shiro is going to come over tomorrow night and he’s gonna tell you he has a date, and he gonna give you that nervous little smile that’s so cute you want to punch a bunny--” Keith pauses. “Okay, we got distracted there for a second but _back on track._ You are gonna be happy for him. That’s it. No selfish feelings. _No petulant jealousy._ Got it?” The monologue ends with a huff and a deep breath, one that’s more of a ploy to try and convince himself of what he’d just said. But, baby steps. At least he had a guideline on how to act.

 When the next night rolls around, Keith is a nervous wreck. Part of him doesn’t want to see Shiro but the other part doesn’t want to cancel. He contemplates drinking before Shiro comes over but knows that won’t do any good either. Drunk Keith alone with Shiro was definitely not the recipe for ‘Supportive Only Friend Who’s Going To Congratulate Your Date’. But then, maybe this is what he needs to feel better. This is an environment that’s just them. No florona. No class. Just Keith and Shiro climbing up to the roof of Keith’s apartment building and looking up at the stars.

It’s a parallel Keith doesn’t want to think about. A similar time years ago.

When Shiro does get there, him and Keith take their respective spots on Keith’s couch to watch the new episode of Alien Mysteries. Everything is fine because neither of them do much talking but Keith is more conscious of where his legs are positioned. This time, they go nowhere near Shiro. Only his eyes go there. For a split second, Shiro catches his gaze and frowns when Keith instantly looks away.

He’s really not good at playing anything close to the vest.

“Wanna go up?” Shiro says to Keith when the show is over. Keith stands and stretches, his shirt rises and shows off his midriff but he doesn’t look at Shiro to see if the man notices or not.

Keith only nods in response.

 

* * *

Outside the air is crisp and refreshing in a way that lets Keith breathe it in as if he’s taking calmness into his lungs and expelling his bullshit out for the universe to deal with instead of him. The notion of that alone is enough to help. Shiro keeps staring at him, Keith can tell. And he really doesn’t want a repeat of the lecture hall conversation so he turns his gaze upwards to the stars and leans back on his hands.

“Remember when you told me space scared you?”

Shiro seems a little caught off guard, but a slow smile tugs at his lips.

“I don’t remember saying it scared me.”

“You said it gave you a crisis.”

“That’s not the same thing.” He’s laughing now, Keith is too.

“It kind of is.”

“It kind of _isn’t_.” Shiro punctuates the word with a prod to Keith’s ribs, making him jump and grab his finger.

“No tickling! I have a point.”

“Okay, let’s hear it then.” Keith is still holding Shiro’s finger.

“I feel that way too now.”

“In a crisis, or scared?” Shiro’s voice in humorous and Keith laughs awkwardly, dropping his hold.

“A scared crisis.” Shiro waits for him to continue and he does. “It just-- feels like… Every night we pass the same stars going in our same orbit and our same turning, but… The time is still different.”

“Right.” Shiro doesn’t sound like he’s following completely.

“So, the same stars you saw yesterday are still the one you see now except in a different time. Maybe a better or worse time. It’s like-- maybe even though we see the same things every day, we waste our time. Or something. Maybe by the time we realize we want a star, the only thing we’re seeing is remnant light. Because we’re already too late.”

Silence. Then,

“Who let you loose in the archives of emo poetry?”

Keith frowns. “I’m being _symbolic_ right now. That deserves appreciation.”

“Okay,” Shiro starts, scoots a bit closer to him. “What else?”

That’s his opening, Keith knows it. The atmosphere is practically screaming it at him. _Tell him, tell him, tell him._

“That’s all.” Is what he says instead.

“I know a thing or two about bad timing.” Shiro turns his eyes away from Keith and looks up at the sky. “I used to think the universe hated me.” He says it so flippantly that Keith snorts in amusement.

“Why?” _How could anyone hate you?_ Shiro turns to look at him again and says:

“Because I wasn’t born five years earlier.”

Keith’s heart does somersaults before plummeting to his stomach. He looks away.

“Aside from that,” Shiro clears his throat before continuing. “I thought it was bad timing to ask you what was wrong in class the other day. I didn’t mean to corner you.”

“You didn’t corner me, I shouldn’t have ignored you like that.”

“I’m worried about you” The abruptness of it catches Keith off guard and for a moment he doesn’t know how to react. So he does what he always does: closes up.

Shiro moves closer. He’s gotten so much more forward, so much more confident. It rolls off him and next thing Keith knows, Shiro is gripping his hand, imploring him with his eyes to open up, just this once.

Keith doesn’t pull away. But it’s becoming too much. Keith can feel it. He’s not good at these types of emotional situations where everyone shares their feelings in a healthy and expressive way. Shiro looks like he can do that but Keith knows he can’t.

“There’s nothing to worry about” Keith says as he pulls his hand away. “I’m fine.” He tries and fails to smile.

“Keith, I know you. This isn’t fine.” Shiro reaches for his hand again. “Talk to me.” But Keith shrugs off his touch, doesn’t look to see the hurt on Shiro’s face when he does it.

“Let’s talk about something else.” _Don’t go there, Keith. Don’t go there._ “How’s your new girlfriend?” He goes there, and it throws Shiro for a loop.

“My what?”

“Your girlfriend. Florona.”

“Florona isn’t my girlfriend, she’s just a girl in class.”

Keith’s temper flares. He can’t help it. He should shut up but he doesn’t. If Shiro is dating Florona she’d be good for him.

“I _saw_ her confess to you, Shiro.” God, how pathetically jealous was he trying to sound? Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shiro is surprised, but it quickly turns to more confusion.

“Then you should have also seen how I responded to her, I said no.”

He what?

Keith turns his eyes back to Shiro. They looked at each other for a moment. Frustration is clear in Shiro’s eyes until in a matter of seconds, it isn’t. It’s replaced with a searching expression that leaves Keith feeling vulnerable, open. He shoulder hate it and with anyone else, he would.

“Is that what’s been bothering you?” Shiro asks him and Keith’s heart goes into overdrive. He doesn’t answer right away. Shiro hesitates but moves fractionally closer. “Keith.”

“ _Why_ would that be bothering me?”

The frustration comes back.

“You tell me. You’ve been ignoring me for days. I thought we were at least friends. I, I thought you at least trusted me.”

“I _do_ trust you, Shiro. This has nothing to do with that.”

“ _Yes_ , it does.” His voice is harsh. Shiro leans forward to take Keith’s face in his hands. “If you trusted me you’d know who I want. Who I’ve been telling you I wanted since I was _twelve_ . Keith, it’s you. It’s always going to be _you._ ” His thumb tenderly strokes Keith’s cheek. “Stop acting like that’s going to change.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Keith is upset now. He wrenches Shiro’s hands away from his face but Shiro grips Keith’s hands in his own. “I ignored you for years. I--”

“I was a kid.”

“You don’t deserve to get brushed off by me until I find a reason to get jealous. You’re great. Caring, smart, strong-- holy shit, Shiro. You deserve better than--”

Shiro drops Keith’s hands, returns them to his face and kisses him with all the love in the world. It’s soft but so sure that Keith feels like he’s melting, falling, drowning, but there’s not a complaint about it in sight.

“Stop talking,” Shiro whispers it against his lips fervently only a millisecond before Keith kisses back. He’s always heard the term of feeling sparks or fireworks when you kiss the right person but to Keith, right now, he feels stars colliding. His hand moves up to Shiro’s chest, strokes down the cloth of his shirt and feels nothing but hard muscle beneath it. Suddenly, he’s touched starved and wanting nothing more than to pull Shiro closer, closer, closer… So he does.

“C’mere, then...” Keith’s fingers tangle in the fabric of Shiro’s shirt, forcing the man in between Keith’s bent knees, hands braced on the roof tiles beneath them. Precarious was one word to describe this but keith preferred perfect. That’s what it felt like as Shiro pressed his weight down, cupped the side of Keith’s face in a manner so overwhelmingly tender it made Keith’s heart feel as if it were about to burst.

“I don’t know what I deserve or what I don’t,” Shiro’s voice is soft, his breathing on the verge of becoming ragged. “I just know that I don’t want to look at anyone but you.”

Keith doesn’t know how to respond. He tries his best.

“Look at me, then.” Shiro does. Keith’s voice wavers. “I like you.”

“Say it again?”

“No way, you’re too young to be hard of hearing.” Keith’s lips pull into a smile as he laughs, leaning away from Shiro and playfully pushing at his chest. Leaning forward, Shiro kisses him once more and brushes the bangs out of Keith’s face.

“Please, Keith? Say it again.” Shiro’s lips ghost down Keith’s jaw leaving fire in their wake, and as soon as the man gets to his neck, Keith can’t help but moan.

“I like you.”

Shiro pulls back to beam at Keith who’s staring up at him with a flush spread over his cheeks.

“I like you too.”

Keith knows in that moment he’d do everything to make sure Shiro is able to smile like that forever.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is soft and loving and I'm so glad I could wrap this up with both these boys being happy as fuck.

It has to be perfect.

Which is weird considering absolutely  _ nothing  _ in Keith’s life can ever be called that. Typically, it’s messy, disorganized, haphazard, and rides on the coattails of raw emotion. 

This is especially true when it comes to sex. 

But then again, Keith doesn’t want sex with  _ Shiro _ to be typical. Not in the slightest.

As of currently, he’s not sure how to go about it. 

“So,” Nyma begins, pausing the TV show she’d been watching and looking at Keith. “You… bought a candle?”

Keith worries the inside of his cheek at her tone. It isn’t  _ just  _ a candle. First of all, he’d never needed one before and second, at least it’s a step in the right direction as far as any sort of planning goes. 

“Yeah, so what?” he says with an edge to his voice. Nyma smiles and reaches her hand out. 

“Let me see it.” When Keith reluctantly hands her the small blue candle in frosted glass, she quickly takes a picture of it with her phone. “‘Clean Laundry’, huh? Sexy.” 

“Hey!” Keith reaches for his purchase, yanking it back as if he’s protective of it. What’s wrong with clean laundry? Better than  _ dirty  _ laundry. Which is what his room smells like now. “What are you doing?”  

“Snapchatting Allura.” She reads the caption out loud as she types. “Just when we think Keith is becoming a Lover Boy, he bangs to the scent of laundry.” 

Keith feels his phone vibrate in his pocket only moments later-- no doubt a text from Allura-- and he groans before turning to stalk to his room. His friends aren’t any help with this. 

When the door is safely shut behind him, Keith lobs the candle into his pile of unwashed clothes and falls face-first onto his bed. 

The problem, as if there were only one, is that Keith is most definitely overthinking this. What he should have done was down a couple beers then text Shiro to come over tonight where his tipsy self wouldn’t have to worry about nerves ruining his perfect image. Unfortunately, he’d told Shiro in person that he wanted their normal hangout to be a date instead, albeit a stay-in one.

With a groan, Keith forces himself to flip over and view the daunting pile of essentially his entire closet. He supposes if he’s going to worry over every possible what-if in the universe that may end with the fracturing of Shiro’s rose-colored glasses and subsequent disappointment, he might as well be productive. 

Doing laundry, he remembers, fucking sucks. 

 

At exactly eight o’clock, the doorbell causes Keith to almost jump out of his skin. Even still, his heart feels as if it’s considering it. It’s just Shiro, he tells himself to no avail, because when we opens the door,  _ just Shiro  _ is standing there like he was sculpted from the hands of every Greek god he ever learned about in English class. Keith realizes from some far away space in his mind that he’s probably (definitely) gawking, but he really can’t be bothered to care. 

“Hey,” Shiro begins. His voice is a little quieter than normal and sweeter than honey. Keith wants to drink it up and listen to nothing else for the rest of forever. When Shiro moves the hand that was behind his back, he produces a single red rose, and Keith feels his cheeks heat to match its hue. 

“Hi-- uhm… flower.” Wow, he’s great at this. Keith smacks a hand over his burning cheeks and reaches for the rose, stepping back to let Shiro both into the apartment and closer to his shame. “Thanks.” 

“I’ve never seen you nervous before.” 

Keith already knows Shiro is smiling just from the tone of his voice, and finds that averting his eyes is just not possible. “I’m not--” 

But Shiro gently pulls Keith’s hand away from his face and leans in to kiss him. It’s slow and melts him back against the wall. “I like it.” 

When Keith kisses him back, he tries to regain at least  _ some  _ of his typical composure and almost entirely succeeds. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

They kiss for another moment or so, but Keith breaks the contact before he can get ahead of himself. “Y’know,” he begins, playfully dodging out from the welcome cage of Shiro’s arms. “No one’s ever gotten me flowers before.”

Shiro seems to find offense in this, and frowns. “Really?” 

Keith shrugs. “Guess they never needed to,” he says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. The last thing he wants to do tonight is allude to his previous sexual escapades. 

Luckily, Shiro takes the comment in stride and moves closer to Keith once again. “I would have brought you an entire garden but I thought it might be a little hard to get it inside.” 

“Soil and everything, huh?” Keith can’t help but laugh.

“You can’t have the beauty without the dirt.” And somehow, it feels like that sentence in itself is Shiro’s way of telling him that his past doesn’t matter. But maybe he’s reading too much into things. 

“Okay, Romeo.” Keith intends to softly bat at Shiro’s chest for the cheesy comment but the motion falls short and all he ends up doing is caressing him. Which, Keith doesn’t necessarily mind. Like, at all. His eyes follow his fingertips that rest just over Shiro’s left pectoral before he stops himself and clears his throat. “TV?” 

“Alright…” Shiro’s voice sounds as if he’d been just as distracted as Keith. 

The television, incidentally, is not a cure-all for Keith’s overactive heart as much as he thought it would be. Shiro and him always watch Ancient Aliens together, but now it’s different that they’re official. Keith wants to crawl into a hole and die for just how much that sentiment has been getting to him over the past few days since it happened. He’s dated plenty before and this shouldn’t be any different, but for some reason it is, it really is. 

Keith is cuddled up next to Shiro on the couch with his legs tucked under him and his head on Shiro’s shoulder, their fingers are intertwined and resting on the top of Shiro’s thigh. Even though this is a new episode that Keith hasn’t seen yet, he’s finding it pretty impossible to focus on the screen. If he’s sneaky about it, he’s learned in just the last two minutes, he can stare up at Shiro’s face without the other man noticing.

Or, so he thought because when he does it next, Shiro squeezes his hand a bit. 

An idea sparks in Keith’s mind at how dutifully Shiro’s expression remains on the tv. As if he’s respectfully trying to make sure that watching shows is all that goes down on this couch in the dark, and it’s  _ so  _ like Shiro that Keith cracks a smile. He supposes though, all he told his boyfriend was that he wanted to have a date, and had left out the part about also wanting to be fucked into his mattress until he saw stars. So he doesn’t blame Shiro for his usual upstanding behavior. 

Leaning up slightly, Keith ghosts his lips just over Shiro’s jugular, and the man’s lips part to let loose a shaky exhale. Again, fingers tighten over his own and Keith smirks. He kisses Shiro’s neck more firmly this time, moving up to his jaw and back down where he begins to suck a mark into his beautiful skin, hand moving up Shiro’s thigh.

“Keith…” 

“Mm?” 

“We don’t have to rush anything.” Shiro sounds sure of this but his breathing is already heavier than normal and suddenly, Keith is sick and tired of how pure he is. Getting people to crack and touch him has never been difficult and with how much Keith knows Shiro wants him, it shouldn’t be a challenge here either.

“Who’s rushing?” Keith swings his leg over Shiro’s and it’s amazing how right it feels to straddle him, how perfect their hips ft against each other. Keith kisses Shiro with intention and rocks himself down. “Am I too much for you, Shirogane?”

Shiro groans at Keith’s movement and his hands fly to Keith’s hips where they grip him in a bruising vice. Though, just as quickly as the delicious pressure came, it’s gone, replaced by Shiro’s hands smoothing away any pain.

“You’ve always been too much for me.” The way Shiro says it makes it sound almost reverent. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying to keep it together here.” 

Keith rolls his hips down again and forces Shiro’s husky laugh to break off into a deep groan. He kisses hotly along to his boyfriend’s ear and his own voice is on the brink of a whine. “Well, you have no idea how  _ hard  _ I am in general, so why don’t you quit trying?”

Much to Keith’s approval, Shiro bucks up against him and the obvious bulge pressing against his ass is like the promise of rain in a drought. He moves his hands down Shiro’s chest as they kiss, pinches one of Shiro’s nipples in the process and causes the man to bite his lip.

When Keith manages to get his hands down between them, he fumbles with the button and zipper of Shiro’s jeans until he’s finally wrapping fingers around hot, turgid flesh and Shiro  _ growls  _ against his mouth.

“Fuck…”

Keith has never thought that he’d be able to orgasm just from the sound of someone’s voice but Shiro threatens to do just that to him. He squeezes and works his hand up and down, relishing in the gasps and heated breaths coming from Shiro.

“I wanna blow you, okay?”

“Jesus, Keith…” 

Feeling Shiro tremble under him is the only thing keeping Keith sane in that moment. If he keeps their positions like this, where he’s the one in control, then he won’t have to think about how tight and full his heart is and how he’s never felt this way before in his entire life. The thing is, Keith doesn’t think he’ll be able to do that. Just from having Shiro’s lips on him and hearing his sounds, it’s obvious the guy’s like a caged animal waiting to be let out. Shiro would  _ destroy  _ Keith. He knows it.

Keith doesn’t make any other comments before he’s on his knees in between Shiro’s legs, staring at the flushed cock in his hand and gulping at the sight. Shiro is so hard and heavy in his grasp, it’s a heady sight that adds to the power trip he’s on. Leaning forward, Keith licks along the underside of Shiro’s tender flesh and keeps eye contact the entire time. Watching his boyfriend’s eyes lid and roll back as Keith lowers his mouth over Shiro’s head. 

Shiro’s fingers card into Keith’s hair and hold tight the moment Keith swipes his tongue along the slit that’s already leaking precum into his mouth. For some reason, he’s not adverse to the taste like he normally is. Right now, Keith loves it, wants to milk more and more of the fluid from Shiro until he’s coming so hard down his throat that he chokes. 

God damn, Keith is so far gone for this guy. 

“Keith…” Shiro manages to get out. His fingers in Keith’s hair are shaking and his chest is rising and falling with an increased cadence that Keith sets pace to. Up and down, over and over again, Keith can feel Shiro’s dick straining in his mouth and then suddenly, it’s gone. 

Shiro yanks on Keith’s hair, but not in the way he’d enjoy. He’s being moved up and away and then Shiro is kissing him hard and with a fervor that Keith hasn’t seen before. Only after a few seconds does he realize Shiro is speaking so quickly he’s tripping over his words. 

“Stop, stop, stop...hang on a second…” 

They’re both panting when Keith finally stills his hand that had moved back to Shiro’s length instinctively when his mouth was forcefully removed. 

“Are you gonna blow already?” Keith says without a hint of judgment in his voice whatsoever. The idea of Shiro climaxing so quickly all from him is too nice of a thought. 

“If you kept doing that, yeah.” He’s smiling and Keith takes a quick moment to take stock of how fucking gorgeous he is. “I don’t want this to be over so soon.” 

Keith wants to make a mention of how there’s plenty of time in the evening for a second or third round to be thinking of quitting yet, but he doesn’t get the chance to because Shiro is suddenly hoisting him up from the backs of his thighs and picking him up from the couch. 

The entire walk back to Keith’s room is spent with their tongues twining against each other and only once does Shiro accidentally run them into a wall, causing Keith to gasp and for Shiro to fill the spaces of lost breath with his own.

Keith feels dizzy and turned on at the same time when Shiro lays him back on his bed and then there’s nothing in his awareness that doesn’t have to do with Shiro’s hands. It seems like they’re everywhere all at once: moving under his shirt, tweaking one of his nipples, palming at his erection that’s begging to finally be free from the confines of his jeans. It’s too much and not enough at the same time. 

“Fuck me,” comes out of Keith’s mouth before he can think of anything more romantic to say, and Shiro freezes, looking down at Keith as if he were the world’s eighth wonder. 

“Are you sure?” But even though he’s asking, he’s pulling Keith’s jeans down until Keith’s able to kick them away and his boxers are soon to follow. 

“Does this,” Keith gestures vaguely to his dick which is laying hard against his stomach. “Look sure to you?” 

It does, Keith guesses, because Shiro licks his lips as he looks down at him. Even though Keith feels his body flush slightly under the gaze, his ego preens at what he’s doing to Shiro. How he’s making his boyfriend’s body react just by existing. It’s intoxicating. 

In a bout of frustrating stalling, Shiro looks over to see the candle burning on Keith’s nightstand and raises a brow in question. “I wasn’t going to mention your clean room just yet, but atmosphere setting?” 

Now was not the time for teasing. But Keith purses his lips and gives into it nonetheless. “If one more person gives me shit for this candle, I’m gonna pour hot wax on them.”

“Some people are into that.”

Keith makes a pathetic sound of protest at the change in conversation and leans up to kiss Shiro hotly and hopefully get him back on track. When he bites and sucks on Shiro’s lower lip, Keith thinks the subsequent groan that comes from the man is indicative of his success. 

“Quit trying to distract me, Shirogane.”

“Who, me?”

Keith reaches down to grip Shiro’s hard-on, making him shudder before speaking again.

“I just want you to be positive...” Shiro kisses down Keith’s neck and is answered by Keith reaching blindly back behind him until he finds the half-empty bottle of lube stashed under his pillow. Without an ounce of tact, he shoves it against Shiro’s chest. 

“Here, I’m positive, Shiro,  _ please. _ ” 

Keith thanks not only God but also every star in the sky when he feels one of Shiro’s slicked fingers pushing inside of him. It’s not nearly enough but he should have expected that Shiro was going to be unbelievably gentle with him. Even with only one digit now sheathed within him, Shiro stops. 

“How’s this?” 

Keith nods, rolling his hips back against Shiro’s hand to show him that he’s fine and he can take this (way more than this, actually). “It’s good. Give me more?” 

Shiro is a good listener, despite his slow ministrations. Carefully, as if Keith may break at any moment, Shiro pushes another finger inside him and Keith is only a hair’s width away from losing his mind. He’s panting and his dick is leaking onto the lower half of his belly but Shiro’s taking his sweet ass time instead of plowing him into oblivion. 

The second Shiro’s fingers crook and press against his prostate, Keith’s back arches up off the mattress. A moan that half embarrasses himself doesn’t even have the chance to fall free as Shiro busies Keith’s mouth with his own. 

“Like that?” 

When Keith nods this time, it’s vigorously as his hands come up to clutch onto Shiro’s shoulders, digging in until he’s sure his nails are leaving dents in the skin. A third finger enters him and Keith almost loses his mind. Finally he’s starting to feel a glimpse of the fullness that he needs but it still isn’t enough. Won’t be until Shiro’s cock is fully seated inside him. 

“Yes,  _ Shiro…”  _ The plea should be enough in itself to get the point across.  _ Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.  _ Keith chants in his head as if Shiro is a mind reader but if he is, he’s playing dumb. Relentlessly, Shiro only fucks him open on his fingers, watching every expression Keith makes and clearly drinking up the sounds like a wine getting him drunk. 

When Keith feels like he can’t possibly take anymore and like he’s going to shatter to pieces on his bed, Shiro’s mouth is suddenly upon him. Then, he isn’t thinking about climaxing, he is. In hot, uncontrolled spurts against the roof of Shiro’s mouth and down his throat. It feels so good, too good, but Keith’s voice betrays him on a whine because it’s still not enough. 

“Fuck…” 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long…” Shiro says as he kisses Keith’s prominent hip bone. Slowly, his fingers still move within him, and Keith twitches at the stimulation. “You’re so beautiful, Keith.” 

The praise raises goosebumps on Keith’s skin and flushes his cheeks. He’s not used to it, not like this. Being watched and revered and  _ loved.  _ He swings his arm over his face to shield the blush as much as possible. “Are you going to fuck me now or not?” 

Keith can feel Shiro’s laugh against the inside of his thigh. 

“It’s a good thing I’m not the impatient one.” 

A part of Keith wants to comment on that. Wants to say something along the lines of if he didn’t have the restraint of a saint maybe he’d be stuffed full the way he wants to be. But he doesn’t. Because the unspoken implication of that sentence is that if Shiro weren’t the patient one, they wouldn’t be here right now. Keith wonders how the hell he was so blind for so long. 

Instead of remark on it, Keith pushes himself to his elbows and touches Shiro’s face in a manner so soft it feels foreign to him. “I’m so glad you are.” 

The look of adoration in Shiro’s eyes is something Keith commits to memory right away. 

 

After what feels like eighty-four years, Shiro is finally lining himself up, pushing forward ever so gently, and Keith tries to command the pace on his own but Shiro’s hands are large and strong and holding his hips in place. It’s frustrating, and he squirms as Shiro’s gasps above him. 

“Are you alright?” Shiro’s voice is strained. 

Keith lets his eyes drag down over Shiro’s body and he can see the man’s abdominal muscles twitching with the effort to remain still. 

“Yeah— c’mon,” Keith says as he kisses Shiro’s neck and wraps his legs around his waist to try and bring their bodies closer. “You don’t need to be gentle with me, Shiro. I can take it.” 

“I know you can.” Shiro pulls his hips back and when he thrusts forward once more Keith sea stars. He does it again and Keith’s mouth falls open, slack in a drawn out moan. “You’re so good for me, Baby…” 

Oh, no. Keith can’t help the whimper that leaves his throat at Shiro’s praise. He knows he’s starting to look desperate and frantic as he clutches at Shiro’s shoulders but hearing Shiro talk to him like that is doing something to Keith’s head. 

“Shiro…” He’s meaning to follow that up with ‘more’ and ‘please’ but he can’t get anything else out. Shiro is fucking him so slow and sweet and when their lips meld once more, Shiro brings a hand up to cup to cradle Keith’s face to him. 

“Don’t hold your voice back, Keith.” 

“Nn…” 

“You feel better than I ever dreamed.” Shiro’s words are punctuated by his cock hitting Keith’s prostate on every thrust, sending shockwaves of pleasure down to his toes. “So beautiful… My Keith…”

The words continue to fall from Shiro’s lips and maybe he’s starting to finally lose himself over to the pleasure because he’s finally starting to move faster, snapping his hips forward and grunting in this primal way that’s sending Keith to Nirvana. 

It feels better than any sex he’s ever had. Their bodies continue to move together, against each other and Keith knows it’s cliché but he really can’t tell where Shiro stops and he begins. Not that he has any desire to do that.

Before too long he starts to feel the familiar coil of pleasure wind up inside his belly like a hot flame. His nails are digging into Shiro’s back, leaving red streaks in their wake as an undeniable identifier of who Shiro belongs to. Keith wants to tell Shiro how close he is but he isn’t sure if he’d be able to hear him over the sound of their skin and panting breaths. 

He tries anyways. 

“Shiro… I…ah!” Keith gasps just as Shiro seemingly reads his mind and grips his swollen dick with such a sure grip that Keith almost loses it right there. Shiro’s hand is fast and everything he’s wanted.

“Come for me, Keith.” His words are so sure and laced with this underlying dominance. Keith wouldn’t be able to say no even if he were crazy enough to want to. All he can do is nod and fuck himself back onto Shiro with an abandon that makes Shiro hold him tighter, thrust into him harder.

“Takashi..!” Keith barely has time to take in the fact that he’s coming in hot spurts over his stomach and Shiro’s hand because Shiro groans so exquisitely when Keith says his name that it blots out everything else.

Shiro’s emptying himself inside Keith and it’s such a delicious sensation that Keith instinctively tightens around him, milking every drop. 

Then they’re both panting and Shiro is laying half on top of him with a smile that would light up the galaxy. He’s looking at Keith like he hung the moon and Keith feels like nothing’s ever been this perfect in his entire life. 

“You snuck up on me with that,” Shiro says with a playful accusation in his tone.

“With what?” Keith turns his body towards Shiro and feigns innocence. 

“My name.” 

“I see you really like it.”

“Say it again?”

Keith kisses him. “Takashi.”

Shiro’s arms encircle Keith easily. “One more time?”

“Takashi.” Though the last two syllables are broken up by a giggle as Shiro nuzzles against Keith’s throat. 

“Thank you.”

Keith snorts. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”

“No, I mean…” Shiro shifts so he’s leaning up on one elbow, a flush spreading across the bridge of his nose. “Thank you for letting me love you.” 

For a moment, Keith doesn’t know what to say, so all he does is feel his face heat up. Shiro leans in and kisses him in the silence. 

“I never thought I’d have the chance,” he continues to say.

“Is it worth it so far?” 

“Yeah. What about for you?”

Keith stares up into Shiro’s eyes and he can’t help but feel like everything he’s lived through has been done in waiting for this moment. Like all the empty spaces made by people leaving him were destined to be filled by Shiro, who’s been there at every turn. 

“Yeah.”

As they kiss with all the time in the world, Keith can’t imagine himself in anyone else’s arms. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read this story, and thank you to Sochan who commissioned me for it! I loved writing this. If you want updates on other things I'm doing, follow me on twitter @knottygalra!


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